If I, a tech savvy developer at a startup, don't find the idea of Quora particularly interesting, why would Average Joe be interested in joining the community?
Have some reasons :-)
* Many people like helping people and answering there questions. Techie folk have hackernews and stackexchange and perlmonks and whatever. This is a place for everybody else.
* It's not subject-specific which makes it more attractive and useful to people who have expertise in multiple areas
* The combination of the multiple-areas-of-expertise and the social-network stuff means that I can very easily come across fun/interesting stuff
* It's fairly open and friendly compared to some Q&A communities. My impression has been that, because it's not subject specific folk, seem to give greater leeway on "dumb" questions that would be given on a narrow "expert" forum.
* <motivation class="selfish">I have had work via Quora. Because it covers all areas of expertise, and gives some kind of levelling information on expertise, it is a market to some extent. Folk who need - for example - expertise if folk who do agile/ux transitions and integrations it's pretty easy to find the people who answer questions around that topic. And hire 'em.</motivation>
I've no idea if they have a sane business model. The hiding answers thang is icky. You may be better served by other communities for the stuff that you're interested in. But I do think there are lots of reasons for folk to use the current site, and those people aren't well served by any other Q&A service that I've played with.
Have some reasons :-)
* Many people like helping people and answering there questions. Techie folk have hackernews and stackexchange and perlmonks and whatever. This is a place for everybody else.
* It's not subject-specific which makes it more attractive and useful to people who have expertise in multiple areas
* The combination of the multiple-areas-of-expertise and the social-network stuff means that I can very easily come across fun/interesting stuff
* It's fairly open and friendly compared to some Q&A communities. My impression has been that, because it's not subject specific folk, seem to give greater leeway on "dumb" questions that would be given on a narrow "expert" forum.
* <motivation class="selfish">I have had work via Quora. Because it covers all areas of expertise, and gives some kind of levelling information on expertise, it is a market to some extent. Folk who need - for example - expertise if folk who do agile/ux transitions and integrations it's pretty easy to find the people who answer questions around that topic. And hire 'em.</motivation>
I've no idea if they have a sane business model. The hiding answers thang is icky. You may be better served by other communities for the stuff that you're interested in. But I do think there are lots of reasons for folk to use the current site, and those people aren't well served by any other Q&A service that I've played with.